Don't need your fix (I've got my own)
by kandora
Summary: Fukutomi/Arakita, homeless AU Arakita's world has shrunken into just one nameless back alley and the hope of another fix. Then one day, a blonde in a tailored suit and black leather shoes quite literally walks into his life. Somehow the guy seems to stick, which Arakita hates, of course. How could anyone look at him and see anything other than a lost cause, a wasted life?
1. Chapter 1

Arakita wished he could just close his eyes and the world would stop spinning. He leaned his forehead against the cold brick wall, eyes watering but unable to close. He tried to pin his hands to the wall with his other arm to stop their shaking, but it was all in vain.

Somewhere deep within his throat he felt a lump rising higher, wanting to escape his mouth and make him break into violent sobbing, but Arakita forced the lump down. It hurt, but he wasn't going to cry. He couldn't afford to cry.

Arakita felt inside his pockets in a panic. He really needed to get some more crack. Maybe there was still some dust left at the bottom. He licked his finger and tried to dig some out, but came up with nothing. Already he could feel his vision begin to blur. He sank to the ground, clutching his throbbing head, howling in anguish.

Arakita bent over in agony, coughing up air, feeling like his lungs were going to burst, but still nothing came up. The gagging felt awful, but somehow it eased his pain a little. After a while of spitting and wheezing, he wiped his mouth with his ragged sleeve and raised his head.

There was a guy standing just before him, wearing a faded-gray hoodie that might've once been black, his long torso bent over at the waist and his huge googly eyes staring straight at Arakita. Arakita tried to back away, and ended up hitting his head against the brick wall. The tall guy before him barked a nasty-sounding laugh and straightened his back.

"Tch," he spat onto the ground. "You addicts are so gross. Pathetic, disgusting, gross..."

Arakita didn't like the way the guy was grinning at him. By instict, he assessed the strength of the long-limbed punk in front of him: he was tall but very, very skinny. Probably weak. Arakita wasn't a bulky mass of muscle himself, but he wasn't all bones like this dude. And he'd certainly taken care of tougher opponents before. He still felt a bit dizzy from the withdrawal effects, but he believed he could take this one.

Arakita got on his knees and from there, slowly wobbled to his feet, leaning on the wall for support. "What'd you want, you sleazebag?" he said, locking eyes with the stranger.

The tall guy covered his mouth with his hand and let out a high-pitched giggle. Arakita felt his eyebrows twitching, his nails digging into his palms.

"What could I want from you?" the gangly apparition said. "You should see yourself, you're so hideously gross... too gross for words."

Arakita swore if he had to hear the word 'gross' one more time, he'd-

Grinning, the stranger bent his back and waved a small bag of powder in front of Arakita's nose. Immediately, Arakita's nostrils widened in want and need.

"You want it, right?" the taller guy flashed a toothy smile.

Arakita took an eager step forward, then let his hands drop to his sides as the realisation hit him.

"I don't have any money though," he said, directing blooshot eyes up at his benefactor.

"Oh, you can pay later," the guy answered, giggling, the picture of generosity.

Arakita was in heaven. He snatched the bag out of the taller guy's hands and dug in, eyes wide, breathing irregular, sprinkling the dust into his pipe. He paused for a moment to beam up at his new best friend. "Hey, thanks... uh..."

"Midousuji-kun," he said. "Don't forget it."

_Okay, I won't_, Arakita thought, already sinking into the sweet embrace of delusion. In a flash, the sky seemed brighter, the air seemed warmer, the dingy buildings all around seemed like palaces from out of a dream, and life seemed full of hope and possibilities. Arakita laughed, a bubbly laugh of happiness. He sat down, took another smoke, and he laughed some more. Life would certainly turn out alright from here.

...

Arakita was shivering, frantic, little shocks like electricity tingling on his spine and running along his skin. He dug into the last bits of his stash and lighted another smoke.

For a while the rush was there, the freezing rain turning into a gently warming summer shower, the sky opening up to bring its gifts to him, refreshing and nourishing on Arakita's thirsty tongue. But then, too soon, the feeling faded and the raindrops were like ice on his skin, and as jagged and deadly as spearheads.

Arakita had to get away from the rain and the cold, he knew, but he was too weak to even crawl along. If he was going to die here, then so be it. He clutched the empty bag of white wonder to his chest and clenched his teeth. No matter what, he wouldn't cry.

Crouching on the ground, Arakita pricked up his ears as he heard the scuffling of feet around the corner. The sound approached, and then a pair of nice, expensive-looking leather shoes appeared in sight and walked right past him. Arakita felt angry enough to burst.

"And fuck you too, you fancy-ass piece of shit!" Arakita shouted, his voice probably sounding weaker than intended, and cracking at the end of the sentence.

The black leather shoes stopped on their tracks and turned towards Arakita. With tremendous effort, Arakita craned his neck upwards. He found himself looking at a man with a spotless white suit, spiky blond hair and a face that resembled the stone statues at Easter Island. He was holding a business case in one hand and a black umbrella in the other. Clearly one of those self-important yuppie types, just the kind that Arakita hated.

The man stared down as if waiting for Arakita to say something more. Arakita released a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.

"Fuck you!" Arakita cried with a raspy throat. "It isn't fai-"

His sentence was broken by a violent fit of coughing. Phlegm spilled out from his mouth and landed on the sidewalk in front of the blonde. The man stood waiting for Arakita's cough to quiet down, and then silence reigned.

Arakita didn't raise his eyes to look at the man again. He kept staring at the sidewalk, wishing for the rich fucking bastard to step away already and let him be. And eventually he did. As Arakita heard the sound of footsteps walking away, he reared his head and yelled from the top of his lungs: "That's right! Just walk away! You do that!"

Arakita clenched his fist across the pavement and crouched down. He could feel another fit of shakes coming.

"Fucking bastard," he muttered under his breath.

_A/N: Alright, first chapter's a bit short and nothing much happens, but I'll try to put the second one up soon enough. That's actually where the story really starts from. I kind of wrote it in a hurry, though so I'll have a lot to edit before it's anywhere near postable._


	2. Chapter 2

Arakita felt across the bridge of his nose with his fingertips. At least it didn't feel broken. The numbness had begun to give way to a dull ache he would probably feel for weeks to come.

Arakita let his shoulders drop down and released a deep breath. He really didn't mind much. It was not like he was a stranger to pain. The greater concern now was how to get his next dose.

_You can pay later_, Midousuji had said. Yeah, right. They always did say that at first, didn't they. And before long, they would up and smash your face in for your troubles.

Arakita almost felt sorry for the smaller blonde guy with the ridiculous braces. Almost. Arakita had seen his eyes when he'd landed the punch that split his nose wide open, and he'd revelled in it. But then the other three had restricted him and held his arms from behind. The rest of them had given him a beating while Midousuji'd stood in the sidelines, watching, oddly expressionless. Clearly he was the boss – the others just did what he said, and so Arakita couldn't hate them for it. Maybe he would've hated Midousuji, but he was too tired to do so.

Arakita curled up in the street corner, drew his knees to his chest and tried to sleep. Being too tired and sore to even walk around, there wasn't much else he could do. Crawling back here had taxed him to his limits, but it'd been worth it. Here, at least, there was a certain sense of familiarity. This was his street corner and he wouldn't let even Midousuji take that away from him.

Midousuji... _If you really can't make money any other way, then maybe you should become a prostitute. There might be guys who would pay, even for you._ That's what he had said. Arakita scoffed to himself. Like hell he would.

Arakita had been too lost in his thoughts to hear the footsteps before they got really close, yet he wasn't even surprised when he saw the same leather shoes make the turn around the corner. He didn't look up as he cracked a bitter laugh.

"Oh, it's you," he said. "I should've known... you get some kind of sick pleasure from watching me suffer?"

Arakita raised his head in surprise as the blonde man crouched in front of him on the ground. The lapels of his pure white suit dragged the ground as he watched Arakita, eyes level with him. Arakita shied away from the stare while the man took in his sunken cheeks, the dark circles below his eyes, the bruises on his exposed skin from where his clothes had torn and ripped, all of his misery and pain on display for all the world to see. Arakita could feel tears of bitter shame rising up to his eyes. He raised his eyes up to the sky to quell them. In their place he welcomed the subsequent rush of anger twisting the corners of his mouth into a sneer.

"Are you all right?" the blonde asked, reaching his hand out to try and touch Arakita's shoulder. "What happened?"

Arakita scooted back as far away from the guy as he could to avoid contact, then sat glaring at him from across a safe distance, huddled in a cold corner, knees to his chest.

"Why do you care?" Arakita growled. "We don't even know each other's names, we're.. we're nothing to each other, and still you keep coming round here like a-"

Arakita's eyes widened as his jaw stopped working mid-sentence, then a mean grin spread on his lips. He raised his head back towards the blonde with a wicked glint in his eye and loathing on his tongue.

"Oh, I get it..." Arakita drawled. "You're a faggot, aren't you? Had your eye on me for a while now, is that it?"

Arakita spat on the ground. Without looking the blonde in the eye, he continued in a lower voice: "You guys make me sick, you really do. But... I don't have much choice."

"It's not about that," the blonde said, expression unwavering. Arakita humourlessly thought that his face really was like carved from stone. "I only wanted to ask-"

Arakita put his hand up in protest. "Fine. Whatever. I don't care about your reasoning. The thing is, I'm ass-deep in debt and I need another fix, so... yeah. This ass is yours if you want it, you fucking faggot."

The blonde man fixed his gaze on Arakita, unblinkingly serious. It was too intense, uncomfortable even. Soon enough Arakita had to turn his face away.

"It's only ten bucks," Arakita muttered, blushing with shame and anger. "Congratu-fucking-lations. You'll be my first customer."

Arakita paused before raising his head. The expression on the blonde's face hadn't changed.

"What's your name?" he asked in an even tone, to Arakita's surprise.

"...Arakita Yasutomo," Arakita muttered, begrudging the blonde even that little piece of himself.

The blonde nodded. "Fukutomi Juichi," he said, extending his arm towards Arakita. Very proper and formal. Arakita stared at the hand for a while, then swatted it away, snorting.

Fukutomi took one last look at Arakita's scratched face, his almost-broken nose and his ripped clothes, then offered his arm again, this time in order to help him up. "Alright, then. Let's go."

Fukutomi supported Arakita on his arm all the way back to the nearest cheap motel they could find. Arakita didn't even know he'd be in this bad of a shape. Toughing it out had become so much of a habit for him that he didn't even know how to take care of himself anymore. And though Arakita wouldn't admit it to anyone, it felt kind of nice to have someone to lean to - even if that someone was a filthy, perverted faggot.

Arakita turned towards Fukutomi with great difficulty and hissed from between his teeth. "Tch, you're probably enjoying this a hell of a lot. Me all bruised and beaten, you getting to play the hero... this is your fetish, isn't it? You prefer guys like me, broken guys, guys at their weakest."

Fukutomi didn't turn his face towards Arakita, nor did he comment on the allusion to his sexual orientation. "I am strong," was his only comment. "But I haven't always been so, and that's why I have a fondness for the weak."

Arakita laughed bitterly. Every action of kindness, every sympathetic look or word only made him want to spite and hate Fukutomi all the more.

"You're ridiculous, you know," Arakita spat. "Do all your friends talk like that too, or are you a special case?"

Fukutomi didn't answer, only kept dragging Arakita's sagging legs through the drizzle that had just began to fall.

At the motel, Arakita hid in the bathroom while Fukutomi went to the counter. He held his face under the tap for who knows how long, the icy water washing on his head but the heat on his face still not cooling. Arakita felt feverish. Sickness, injury, the craving for a fix... and that stone-face and his twisted fucking ways getting Arakita into this mess, and now there was no crawling out of it. When Arakita felt violent shivers tugging his whole body, he decided it was time to get out of the bathroom.

Outside, Fukutomi was waiting. He raised his eyebrows at Arakita's soaked hair and the swelling redness on his face. "Shut up," Arakita muttered, snatching the keys from Fukutomi's hand and walking past him to the stairs.

Arakita's head was pounding. He was being bombarded with a mixture of aches and emotions, all of them deeply unpleasant. The sooner this was over with, the better.

Arakita had no idea what to do in these sorts of situations, nor did he want to. He assumed Fukutomi knew this business much better than he would ever do, so as the blonde locked the door after them and turned his back to Arakita to take off his overcoat, Arakita just climbed on the bed and lay there.

"Alright, do the thing already," Arakita spat. He didn't dare to close his eyes, although he really wanted to, because then the tears would definitely come. And this was the number one worst situation for him to cry. "Get it over with."

Fukutomi didn't respond. In fact, he didn't even look at Arakita. He sat calmly on the chair before the large wooden desk and begun to read the magazine that was laid there.

It didn't take long for Arakita to snap. He shot up from the bed, eyes wide and completely incredulous. "What the fuck? You didn't come here to read!"

Fukutomi didn't respond. Arakita's mouth was left working on still air as he contemplated just what the hell to say. He decided not to say anything. Instead, he jumped up from the bed, walked up to Fukutomi in two brisk strides, and ripped the magazine from his hands.

Fukutomi raised his eyes at Arakita. Somehow the blank expression on his face infuriated Arakita even more than a grin or a smirk would have. Arakita grinded his teeth together. He had to concentrate all of his willpower on not punching the stone-faced clown right then and there. It wouldn't be good for business to go around beating paying customers, Arakita reflected bitterly. At the very least, it would reduce his customer count from exactly one to zero. Also, now that Fukutomi had taken off his coat, Arakita could see he had some pretty strong-looking biceps. Even with his experience, he probably wouldn't be a match. Arakita felt the accustomed heat surging up to his face as he reflected on his shame. How in the hell had he sunk this low?

Arakita threw his shirt over his head and pointed at his chest. "Look at me, you fucking stone-face! I'm bruised all over, doesn't that turn you on?"

Arakita glared at Fukutomi from under tightly-knit eyebrows. "Makes you horny, does it? So c'mon! Fuck me already!"

Fukutomi straightened his back at those words, as if jerking back to attention from a fleeting dream. He raised his eyes at Arakita and peered at him as though seeing him for the very first time. "Arakita, what are you talking about?" he asked, as if genuinely perpexled. Arakita was left gawking. "I'm not about to 'fuck you', as you put it. I just thought I'd keep you company until you went to sleep. You must've had a rough day. Speaking of which, how was your day?"

Arakita backed off a bit, his mouth twisting into an even more mocking sneer. "What the hell is this? You gonna pretend I'm your kid or some shit? You're tucking me in to bed?"

Arakita raised his hands up in the air.

"I give up. This is too fucked up for me. I'm getting out."

Arakita gathered his shirt from the floor, put it back on and was about to grab his filthy leather jacket and turn towards the door when Fukutomi stopped him with a word. "No, don't."

Arakita craned his neck to look at Fukutomi, utterly bored with the situation.

"Don't go," Fukutomi repeated. "I'll go instead."

"What?" Arakita didn't understand anything.

Fukutomi got up, took the keys from the table and waved them before Arakita's eyes. "I bought this room for the whole night, for you to sleep in."

Fukutomi dropped the keys into Arakita's palm as the latter stood slack-jawed, failing to process what the other man had just said.

Fukutomi slipped his shoes on and opened the door. "Good night," he smiled, and then he was gone.

Not knowing what else to do and too tired even to curse, Arakita flopped on the bed. He closed his eyes and soon drifted off into a strange and fitful sleep.


End file.
